"My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so." ~ George Washington

The Phony Budget Crisis: Forget Austerity, Tax the Rich

I am so sick of these people. If they want to operate in a collective, why don’t they form their own? Without hassling other people and without insisting that they have the right to confiscate other people’s earnings?

Comments

"But that’s just the beginning. Wealthy individuals are nothing next to America’s money-sucking corporations", Ted Rall wrote about a wealth tax on individuals.

Now, why would a lefty stop there when complaining about corporations? It's no secret that everyone of Rall's malevolent ilk thinks that corporatist capitalism is an organized crime racket that's sponsored and subsidized by government. In fact, their belief is correct, even if the motivation and reasoning that got them to the conclusion are faulty. So does Ted Rall call for abolition of the racket and, in the meantime, reduction of dependency upon it? Well, no. So, what Rall really means when he hollers for taxing the rich and their corporate businesses is just this:

"I, Ted Rall, want my cut of the fruits of crime that is organized by government."

The fact that Ted is a bleeding hearted do-gooder, a Robin Hoodlum, who would redistribute the loot to alleged victims can be no objection here. Rall wants his cut of the action, and that's that. Yet he has a PR problem.

Solution? Appoint government as his favorite charitable foundation, both to collect from the donors and to pay the hungry tapeworms. Then, to make a living from it, publish a lot of fluff in which he calls for perpetuation and extension of the clever racket.

Somehow, this has managed to remind me of Walter Block's recent rationalization of Ayn Rand's taxfeeding parasitism. Note Walter's claim that "of course, she never came within a million miles of doing any such thing" as "ever contribut[ing] money to the semi-socialist-fascist government". So Ayn Rand, alleged victim of moochers and looters, never paid taxes yet availed herself of wealth redistributed by moochers and looters.

Ted Rall and Ayn Rand make for strange bedfellows, yet bedfellows they are nonetheless.

"Never mind the economists, most of whom say an economic death spiral is exactly the worst possible time for government to cut spending."
Yeah, and never mind the fact that if you only ask Keynesian "economists", any time is the worst possible time for cuts on government spending. By this statement, Rall ignores the very existence of Austrian-school economists, who have been saying all along that taxation and government spending is the cause of the economic death spiral.

“GE is so good at avoiding taxes that some people consider its tax department to be the best in the world, even better than any law firm’s,” reports the Times‘ David Leonhardt. “One common strategy is maximizing the amount of profit that is officially earned in countries with low tax rates.”
Exactly. And bravo for GE. People are always complaining that corporations are shutting plants down and outsourcing goods and services. I wonder why that is? Appropriate a larger percentage of their profits, and see what happens. France has been finding this out for several years now, although they haven't learned anything from it either.